In 1872, Victoria Woodhull, the well-known
advocate of "Free Love" and women's rights, became the first woman to
be nominated for president. She ran on the Equal Rights party ticket at a time
when she and other women were not legally allowed to vote. She and her sister,
Tennesse Claflin, published their own newspaper, The Woodhull & Claflin
Weekly. In this cartoon, Thomas Nast depicts Woodhull as Satan incarnate for her
advocacy of Free Love-i.e., the rejection of marriage as an oppressive
institution and the embrace of sexual freedom. The poor wife in the background
spurns the temptation, despite carrying the heavy burden of children and an
alcoholic husband up the steep and treacherous path of life. Near the end of the
1872 presidential campaign, Woodhull would publish allegations that the nation's
most well-known and respected clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher, had been having an
affair with the wife of her biographer, Theodore Tilton. In Woodhull's
estimation, Beecher was hypocritically preaching one tenet while living by
another, even though his adultery was a far cry from Free Love. A subsequent
trial over the case became a sensational news story.